Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Romantic Love

Almost everyone
has fallen in love at one time or another, perhaps several times. So for most
people “love” is that exciting and sublimely agitating urge for intimacy with
another, felt vaguely in the area of the solar plexus. Discussions on love
almost always include something about what is called erotic love, romantic love
or amour, eros to the Greeks, kāma, lokassādare
or rati in Buddhism. This is the love
that makes the world go around, as the saying goes. It is the love that has
inspired some of civilisation’s greatest literature, art and music. It is the
love everyone longs to experience and hopes will last forever.

Falling in love
as we understand the experience today was not very common during the Buddha’s
time, any more than it was in other ancient cultures. The prelude to and
purpose of marriage was not love. People married to preserve property and
produce legitimate progeny, and therefore most marriages were arranged by
parents. Young people were paired off soon after they reached sexual maturity
so they had very little opportunity to fall in love. If love grew, it did so
after the marriage. Despite this, sometimes young people did manage to fall in
love with each other or sometimes those already married fell in love with
someone other than their spouses. Illicit romantic and sexual relationships
happened despite the lack of opportunities and strong social disapproval.

Today romantic
love commonly blossoms quite suddenly. One person sees another, is immediately
attracted and then falls in love with them. He or she then attempts to make
contact with the person they desire in the hope of attracting their attention
and getting to know them better. If things go as hoped and their interest is
reciprocated, a romance will result. If shyness, insurmountable social
differences or other barriers make close contact with the loved person
impossible, they may secretly worship them from afar, pining for them and
dreaming or fantasising about a relationship with them.

Of course, not
all love start by suddenly “falling” into it; sometimes it grows slowly. The
scriptures identify at least four stages in this gradual awakening. It begins
with seeing (dassana), seeing leads
to association (samsagga),
association leads to intimacy (visāsa),
and intimacy leads to amorousness (otāra,
A.III,67).Romantic love can
last for weeks or months, although if requited it will last much longer. But
sooner or later, it either fades, sours into dislike, or becomes more settled
and evolves into conjugal love.

Romantic love has
all the defining characteristics of other types, although in a much more
exaggerated and unruly form. Couples in love are intensely interested in each
other; much of their time together is spent talking to each other about the
minute details of their lives. They care about each other too, about each
other’s happiness and well-being and particularly that the love they share
continues and grows stronger. They empathise with each other, and in romance
this is usually described as “two hearts beating as one”. Desire for intimacy
is heightened. During the first flush of love, the couple involved can hardly
bear to be out of each other’s sight and the desire for sexual intimacy often
has a desperate, urgent quality to it. In fact, so closely is romantic love
associated with sex that the physical act of sex is commonly called “making
love”. In no other type of love is positive feeling so dominant, sometimes
overwhelmingly so, although it is commonly punctuated by episodes of despair and
distress, anxious longing and shattered hopes. Arguments followed by
reconciliations, or separations ending in reunions, seem only to intensify the
partners’ attachment to and longing for each other’s company. Sometimes couples
will even create such situations so that they can savour the reconciliation.
The scriptures say: “When a couple or a husband and wife frolic in private with
romantic love they chide each other ‘Dear One, you don’t really love me; your
heart is elsewhere’. They chide each other like this falsely so that they can
then love each other more passionately” (Ja.VI,378).

The bliss of new
love can be strong enough to affect a person’s appearance and behaviour. It can
give them a smiling, dreamy, faraway look or a twinkle in their eyes. It can
make them appear preoccupied and uninterested in normal activities or give them
a spring in their steps, at least when their relationships are proceeding
smoothly.

Apart from
possessing the defining characteristics that all loves share, romantic love has
its own unique features. It is initially triggered by visual contact. “Love
goes to one who is seen, there is no attraction to one who is not seen”(Rāmāyaṇa V,26;39). Its primary focus is the body; for males the
face, breasts and hips, and for females the face, shoulders and chest. Certain
body shapes evoke more desire than others, depending on cultural norms, and
some of these can be very peculiar. In China until the beginning of the 20th
century, males found abnormally small female feet intensely erotic. Now most
people would be revolted by such deformities. Only a hundred years ago in the
West, a pale and pudgy was in, now tanned and slim is the fashion. In ancient India both men
and woman were erotically aroused by what was called the tanuromaraji, the line of hair going from the pubis to the navel.
Just how particularly romantic love can be about physical features is suggested
by this description of female beauty from the scriptures. To be alluring to a
man, a woman had to be “fifteen or sixteen, not too tall and not too short, not
too thin and not too fat, not too dark and not too fair”. (M.I,88) The presence
or absence of even small and otherwise insignificant features or details can
make the difference between arousal and disinterest. The pathways of eroticism
and romance are not always easy to fathom.

Another important
feature of romantic love is its tendency to distort perception. Buddhist
scriptures refer to being blinded (kāmandha),
befuddled (kāmamatta) or intoxicated
(kāmāsava) by love. A person in love
sees everything about their beloved as exceptional. A young man might say of
his beloved: “her hair is like silk”, “her teeth are like pearls”, or “her eyes
sparkle like stars.” But when we observe her various body parts they do not
seem to be significantly different from anybody else’s. People in love do not
say things like this in flights of ecstasy; they really believe what they say.
Love makes their eyes see things in a different if unrealistic light, which can
lead to problems. When the wild passion fades as it inevitably must, and the
loved one is seen with a more critical eye, disappointment can set in. What
before was a cute or delightful quirk may become an annoyance. When one person
is besotted by another who does not love them with equal passion or perhaps not
at all, they can be open to being exploited by them. They might be asked for
and gladly give expensive gifts, money and favours. The besotted person’s
family and friends can see what is happening, that the love-struck is being taken
advantage of, but they themself cannot see it. Romantic love can be, as they
say, blind.

Most of all,
romantic love seems to operate outside the will. The term “falling in love” is
a very appropriate and descriptive one. As in actually tripping or being pushed
and falling, you cannot stop until you hit the ground. A person does not choose
or decide to fall in love; a surge of dopamine, oxytocin and other hormones in
the system decides for them. The pull of romantic love and sexual delight, the
promises they whisper in the ear, can be very hard to resist. Occasionally one
of the Buddha’s monks would appear to be progressing well, developing calm and
detachment, experiencing the joy of simplicity and silence. Then suddenly “he
hears that in a particular village or town there are women or maidens fair to
look upon, lovely, with the wondrous beauty of a lotus. When he hears this he
loses heart, falters, cannot keep strong, and is unable to continue the
training. Then he acknowledges his weakness, gives up the training and returns
to the lay life”(A.III,90).

Abandoning the
life of a celibate monk or nun for romance is one thing, but people sometimes
take extraordinary risks or act with unbelievable irresponsibility because they
are under the spell of sexual desire or romantic love. It is romantic love’s
unruly, distorting and distracting qualities that made the Buddha very cautious
of it, and of course he was by no means the only one. The Jains, Hindus,
Stoics, Gnostics, and the early Christians all saw romantic entanglements as pulling one’s energy and attention away
from more spiritual aspirations. Saint Paulsaid:“I desire to have you to be free from
cares. He who is unmarried is concerned for the things of the Lord, how he may
please the Lord; but he who is married is concerned about the things of the
world, how he may please his wife” (1 Corinthians
7,1-35). Except for the reference to pleasing
the Lord, the Buddha could have addressed these same words to his monks and
nuns.

However the
Buddha had a deep enough understanding of the human heart to know that despite
the many tribulations romantic love could bring, it was also a source of great
happiness and a real benediction. He often spoke of what he called “the
satisfaction and the dangers (assādañ ca ādīnava)in sensual pleasure” (M.I,85),
of which romance and sex were the most significant.And there is satisfaction in romantic love –
the wonderful feeling of being cherished and having someone to cherish, the
companionship, the fun, the exhilaration of sex and the delight of sharing
things. It can also nourish virtues such as loyalty, giving, unselfishness and
patience.

The Buddha was
also realistic enough to understand that whatever he said most people would
fall in love and probably wish to marry. Therefore he encouraged his lay
disciples to be responsible in their intimate relationships. The third of the
Five Precepts, the rules of behaviour that all Buddhists undertake to live by,
is the vow “I take the Precept to avoid sexual misconduct”. Although this
precept is primarily about sexual behaviour it overlaps with romantic love
because the two are so closely connected. Wrong sexual behaviour was, the
Buddha said, intercourse with those under the guardianship of their parents,
i.e. under-aged; those protected by Dhamma, i.e. monastics or those who had
taken a vow of celibacy; those already married; those undergoing punishment,
i.e. prisoners; or those bedecked in garlands, i.e. already engaged to be
married (A.V,264).This does
not mean that one already married will never fall in love with such people but
it would be wrong from the Buddhist perspective to encourage and pursue such
feelings. Romantic love should not be confused with dalliance (nandi or kāmarāga). There can be sex without love just as there can be love
without sex. Some people have a strong appetite for sexual gratification and
little or no interest in emotional involvement or long-term commitment. They
may pretend to be emotionally attached to someone but only as a strategy to get
more sex. The Buddha called this sort of thing “sport” (dava), perhaps similar to the Greek ludus, and is what we are talking about when we say that a
particular person “sees love as a game.”

2 comments:

I think we just want to get outside ourselves. Love for another is enchanting in itself but it could also be a first step on the spiritual journey. I think we sense that our individual egos aren't enough to provide happiness…it takes being involved with others to be happy. It's a mighty big topic, that's for sure.

This post is really informative to all kind of people. I am very happy to see the post. I will request you to give more information about this. I have gotten many knowladable speech form here. I have also website where you can get some knowledge which may be for your welfare. Visit here…..sad love

About Me

I am not the 5th or 9th reincarnation of a great lama, I have not recived any empowerments or initiations, I am not the holder of any lineage, I am yet to attain any of the jhanas, I am not a widely respected teacher, I am not a stream enterer (at least I don't feel like one)and I do not have many disciples. Nontheless, you may find some of my observations and musings interesting. I have been a Buddhist monk for 32 years and am the spiritual advisor to the Buddha Dhamma Mandala Society in Singapore.